| Topic: |
Religions > Bible |
| User: |
"Melchizedek" |
| Date: |
29 Jan 2007 10:55:00 AM |
| Object: |
Dysfunctional Family (Part I.) |
Dysfunctional Family (Part I.)
(Excerpt from Wikipedia)
A dysfunctional family is a family in which conflict, misbehavior and even abuse on
the part of individual members of the family occur continually, leading other
members to accommodate such actions. Children sometimes grow up in such
families with the understanding that such an arrangement is normal. Dysfunctional
familes are most often a result of the alcoholism, substance abuse, or other
addictions of parents, parents' untreated mental illnesses/defects or personality
disorders, or the parents emulating their own dysfunctional parents and
dysfunctional family experiences.
Behavior patterns
Dysfunctional family members have common symptoms and behavior patterns as a
result of their common experiences within the family structure. This tends to
reinforce the dysfunctional behavior, either through enabling or perpetuation. The
family unit can be affected by a variety of factors.
According to Steven Farmer, the author of Adult Children of Abusive Parents, [1]
there are several symptoms of family dysfunction:
Denial (i.e. a refusal to acknowledge the alcoholism of a parent; ignoring
complaints of sexual abuse)
Inconsistency and Unpredictability
Lack of Empathy toward family members
Lack of clear boundaries (i.e. throwing away personal possessions that belong to
others, inappropriate touching, etc.)
Role reversals ("parentifying" children)
"Closed family system" (a socially isolated family that discourages relationships
with outsiders)
Mixed Messages
Extremes in Conflict (either too much or too little fighting between family members)
Dr. Dan Neuharth, author of If You Had Controlling Parents also expounds on
dysfunctional families. (He uses the terms "controlling parents", "unhealthy control"
and "over control" throughout his book.) He cites eight signs of unhealthy
parenting: [2]
Conditional love
Disrespect
Stifled speech (children not allowed to dissent or question authority)
Emotional intolerance (family members not allowed to express the "wrong"
emotions)
Ridicule
"Dogmatic or chaotic parenting" (harsh and inflexible discipline)
"Denial of an Inner Life" (children are not allowed to develop their own value
system)
Social dyfunction or isolation
Neuharth also lists eight diferent parenting styles which cause family dysfunction:
[3]
Smothering (parents do not allow their children to maintain a separate identity)
Using (destructively narcissistic parents)
Abusing (parents who use physical, verbal, or sexual violence to dominate their
children)
Chaotic (unstable parents who behave in a wildly inconsistent manner with their
kids)
Perfectionistic( parents who "fixate on order, prestige, power, and/or perfect
appearances".)
Cultlike (parents who feel uncertain and "raise their children according to rigid
rules and roles".)
Depriving (parents who control by withholding love, money, praise, attention, or
anything else their child needs or wants.)
Childlike (parents who parentify their children. They tend to be needy and
incompetent. Usually allow the other parent to abuse children.)
Effects on Children
Children growing up in a dysfunctional family have been known to adopt one or
more of five basic roles:
"The Good Child" - often the family hero who assumes the parental role.
"The Problem Child" - the family scapegoat, who is blamed for most problems.
"The Caretaker" - the one who takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of
the family.
"The Lost Child" - the inconspicuous, quiet one, whose needs are often ignored or
hidden.
"The Mastermind" - the opportunist who capitalizes on the other family members'
faults in order to get whatever he/she wants.
They may also:
distrust others
have difficulty expressing emotions
have low self-esteem or have a poor self-image
have difficulty forming healthy relationships with others
feel angry, anxious, depressed, isolated from others, or unlovable
perpetuate dysfunctional behaviors in their other relationships (especially their
children)
==
Counseling.
Counseling-Christian and non-Christian-has one goal in view: to change
people. Everybody who counsels believes that people need to be changed. The
hope is to change people's lives. But the first and most significant difference
between Christian and non-Christian counseling lies in the kind of change that
other systems have in view.
All non-Christian systems, regardless of what they say, are really changing people
on a superficial level. All unbiblical systems, even when they speak of doing
"depth" counseling, change people at a surface level. No unbiblical method of
counseling can really get down into the heart of a human being and change him at
that level. But that's exactly what a Christian system must do, to be truly Christian.
In Matthew 15, Jesus talked about man. He said, "From the heart come evil
thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual sins, thefts, false testimonies, blasphemies; these
are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands doesn't defile a person"
(vs. 19). "Out of the heart," says Jesus, "these things come." And this list was not
exhaustive, but merely suggestive of the kinds of things people do that get them
into trouble. Then they come for counseling. Note, the source of the problems is
the heart: "Out of the heart these things come."
Freud and others who have followed his psychoanalytical approach talk about
depth counseling. They speak about getting down into the deepest recesses of a
human being, where his motivation really stems from. The fact is, they don't have
the faintest idea of what is involved in doing that. Yet, pastors have often been told
(and their parishioners have often thought), "This person's problem is much too
deep" (the key word that is used all the time is "deep") "for a pastor to handle. He
will need professional help. I'll have to send him to a psychiatrist."
My friends, it ought to be the other way around! The only person who can really
operate at a level of depth is the person who knows how to go to the heart of a
man's problem. That's because the heart is the man's problem. The only way to
go to the heart of a man's problem is through the gospel of Jesus Christ ministered
in the power of the Holy Spirit, Who transforms the heart of man and thus
transforms his life patterns. The murders, the adulteries, the evil thoughts, the
sexual sins, the thefts, the false testimonies, the blasphemies (and all the rest) can
be changed only in some superficial way, unless the heart out of which they come
and by which they are generated is transformed by the Spirit of God using His
Word. And-never forget this-in such work the pastor is the
professional-God's professional.
Now we ought to believe that if we believe the Bible. I don't need to turn to
twenty-five other passages and do a lot of Bible flipping with you; I don't believe
in doing that kind of study (it's not the kind of study to do in the pulpit). You can
go home and do that on your own. We need only one verse to tell us something;
then we should believe it. But there are at least 125 passages that clearly tell us in
one way or another that man's problem stems from sin down deep in the heart.
Human beings inherited hearts corrupted by Adam's sin. And unless something
can get at that corrupt heart, people won't be changed at the level of depth that is
necessary to alter the source of their problems. Anything else that is done is
equivalent to putting a plug in the bottle, putting a lid on the problem, screwing a
cap over it. You can't really solve a person's problem at the level of depth
necessary unless you use the Word of God, empowered by the Spirit of God, and
bring it home to the heart.
The Bible uses a number of terms to talk about the make-up of human beings. It
speaks, for instance, of loving the Lord your God with "all your heart, all your
mind, all your soul and all your strength." These words-heart, mind, soul,
strength-all these words describe aspects of human nature. It's not quite as easy
to cut and categorize people as some think. They make easy divisions like "man is
spirit, soul and body" that don't quite fit the fulness of the scriptural description of
man. "Heart" is a word that encompasses all other terms for the inner life. The
biblical term, however, doesn't mean what we mean when we say "heart" today.
When somebody says, "I love you with all my heart," he's thinking about one
thing-feelings and emotions. The Valentine's Day heart typifies the modern
usage. There you see lace doilies, cupids and cherry cheeked cherubs with bows
and arrows shooting arrows into hearts. Today "heart" means emotion, feeling. But
that isn't what heart is in the Bible. When you read passages in the Bible that use
the word heart, you must never interpret the meaning in terms of the feelings, or
you will misunderstand every one of those passages. Perhaps some of you have
been doing so for years. If so, it's high time for you to realize it.
When the Bible talks about feelings, it talks not about the heart but the
bowels-the guts. Did you know that? It does. It speaks about "bowels [feelings]
of compassion." The Bible is much closer to the facts than we are in our modern
culture. The Bible calls the bowels the seat of the emotions. Where is it that people
get ulcers-on the heart? No-in the gut, where so much emotion is centered.
Well, then, what does the Bible mean by "heart" if it is not talking about feelings?
What the Scriptures are talking about is the inner life of a human being. This is the
inner man-his whole inner life, including the inner aspects of the feelings, thinking,
decision-making, etc. "Why do you reason thus in your heart?" asks Jesus. Plans
are said to originate in the heart. When a person talks to himself ("the fool has said
in his heart."), he does so in the heart. That is where one thinks with himself,
reasons with himself, accuses and excuses himself, etc. According to the Bible,
that whole inner life that you live is your heart.
You do know that you live two lives (or, better still-one life on two fronts), don't
you? You live a life in reference to other people, and you live a life in reference to
yourself. And of course you live both of them in reference to God. God is over
both. What is it that makes you do what you do? What is it that makes you think
what you think? What is it that motivates you the way you are motivated? What is
it inside of you that produces the kinds of words that pour out of your mouth and
the kinds of actions that your hands perform? It is the inner life, the heart; and that
is what needs to be changed, says Jesus. This planning and motivational center of
your being must be transformed so that you can begin to do things that please God
and that benefit your neighbor. Until that takes place, you haven't begun to change
at a level of depth.
And of course nobody can learn to love God and learn to love his neighbor as he
should until he has first come to know the love of Jesus Christ for him. It simply
can't be done. "We love," says John in his first letter, "because He first loved us."
And it is only when we come to a recognition of our sin and when we come to a
relationship with Jesus Christ through faith in Him that transforms us and changes
us to be different people within, that we can become different people without. This
is the work of the Spirit of God. Look at Romans 5:5. "God's love has been
poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who was given to us." You can't
love others, you can't love God, until the Holy Spirit has been poured into-what?
Your feelings? No: Until He is poured into your heart-i.e., your innermost
being-to change and transform and mold and remake the inner structure of your
thought life. It was corrupted and twisted and warped through Adam's sin. So
that's where you must begin. Without that viewpoint about counseling, you might
as well not even start to think about changing people, because all you're going to
do is to exchange one set of bad behavior patterns for another. You're not going
to do anything at the level where it needs to be done-at the inner core of the
human personality.
When the Spirit of God changes hearts, His inner alterations lead to change of
outward actions and life relationships. There isn't time to go into that in detail; I'm
still in the introduction! But you can read about it in Romans 8:10, 11; Romans
6:2; Galatians 5-how the Spirit of God enables believers to transform the habit
patterns of the "members" of the "body" by changing their hearts (for more on this,
see The Use of the Scriptures in Counseling).
If you stress outward change, as so many people do, what happens? You will
develop a legalistic liberalism: "Do this, don't do that." The notion will get abroad
that you can change persons by changing from the outside their environment or
their behavior patterns, or something of that sort. This legalistic liberal approach
really says, "The cross is not necessary; all you have to do is obey the rules." We
are not liberals; we believe the Bible, and that the cross is the essential message
that every Christian must proclaim. We are not legalistic; we believe that a man
must operate out of love, not out of rules imposed upon him, to which he has no
commitment whatever. A person obeys His rules, even when he doesn't feel like it,
because he wants to please a God who had sent His Son to die for him. That
makes all the difference in the world.
On the other hand, if you stress the inner change alone and forget that that the
inner change leads to outward changes in behavior patterns as Romans 6, 7 and 8
tell us, then you get a cold orthodoxy that is great on doctrine, but doesn't do
much to change people's lives. They get all this information tightly packed into their
skulls, but it never gets into the fabric of everyday living. They do not walk in the
truth, as the Scriptures beautifully put it when with perfect balance they combine
the inner/outer sides of changed living. So it is absolutely essential to see that inner
change is essential, but also that it leads to outer change. These two sides are part
and parcel of one another. If there is really no outer change-none
whatsoever-there has been no inner change. If there are no works, there is no
faith. But if there is minimal change (as there so often is), it may indicate that there
hasn't been much good counseling; there has been only evangelism.
Now that's the first presupposition that I want to get across: counseling must be
done on a level of depth, a level deep enough to transform the human heart. That
fact makes a tremendous difference when you're counseling an unbeliever.
[1]
The second fact grows out of the first: you must recognize the limitations that exist
when counseling an unbeliever. First of all, unbelievers do not know Jesus Christ,
and they do not care about knowing Him in any significant way. So anything you
say to them about obeying, loving, or serving Jesus Christ falls on deaf ears. The
difference is explained in John 3:19-21:
And this is the judgment:.the Light has come into the world, but men loved
darkness rather than the Light because their works were evil. Everyone who
practices evil hates the Light and doesn't come to the Light so that his works
won't be exposed. But whoever does the truth comes to the Light so that it may
be clearly seen that his works have been carried out for God.
In I Corinthians 12:3, Paul puts it this way: "I want you to understand [and we had
better understand] that nobody who is speaking by God's Spirit ever says, 'Jesus
be cursed.' And nobody can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." Now
Paul doesn't mean that a person can't utter the words with his lips hypocritically.
Of course many thousands of people have done so, and there could be people
right here who have fooled others around them because they have done just that.
But they've repeated words that they don't really mean. They are not subject to
Christ as Lord. Pushed on this question, Paul would say, "Nobody can say this
from his heart."
When the Bible speaks about believing something "with all your heart" or saying
something "from the heart," what it means is that you're not just saying it with your
lips. It is the lips and the heart that are contrasted in Scripture, not the mind and
the heart. We talk about head-knowledge/heart-knowledge, but that's not a
biblical contrast. It's lips and heart that are contrasted; what we speak and what
we believe (the contrast is between the inner and the outer man). To speak of
doing something from the heart is to talk about sincerity, not about feelings over
against intellectual thought. The contrast is between sincerity and hypocrisy. There
may be someone here who has said, "Jesus is Lord," with his lips and never said it
with his heart. The man who believes in his heart that God has raised Christ from
the dead, will be saved. It must be genuine; it's got to come from the core of the
being, from the inner person. This says that no man can say "Jesus Christ is Lord"
(that way) until the Spirit of God has enabled him to do so.
If that is true, how are we ever going to get people to change in counseling, if they
can't say, "Jesus is Lord"? If they can't say, "Jesus is Lord," they can't obey; if
they can't obey, they can't follow Him, they can't be His disciples.
You say, "What are you doing? It sounds as though you're proving that it's
impossible to counsel unbelievers." Well, just hold on for a little bit. Please be
patient.
Let me go one step further. Unbelievers can't understand the Scriptures either.
Remember, we're trying to face the limitations honestly. In the second chapter of I
Corinthians-among other startling things in that chapter-Paul says in the
fourteenth and fifteenth verses:
But a natural person does not welcome the teachings of God's Spirit; they are
foolishness to him and he is not able to know about them because they must be
investigated spiritually. But the spiritual person is able to investigate everything
while (on the other hand) no one has the ability to investigate him.
What is a natural person? Just a plain old natural person, nothing has happened to
him; he's just the way he was born by nature and that's it. He has never been
transformed at any level of depth; he's just a natural person who has been born
once with a sinful nature that can do only those things that displease God. A
natural person is one who does not have the Spirit of love poured into his heart, so
he cannot love God and his neighbor, and he does not welcome the teachings of
God's Spirit.
Suppose you try to do biblical counseling with an unbeliever. You say, "There's a
solution to your problem," and you turn to the Bible and tell him, "Here's what
God says in His Word." What's his response? He says, "Huh!" He says (in
effect), "So what?" And if he doesn't say "Huh!" out loud, he goes out and lives
"Huh!" He doesn't welcome the teachings of God's Spirit. Why? The passage
goes on to say, "They are foolishness to him and he is unable to know about them
because they must be investigated spiritually." He does not have the ability to
investigate the Bible on his own. He has only natural equipment with which to
investigate it. He has his own nature, his own abilities, his own insights, his own
strength to do it. But this equipment won't do. To investigate Scripture properly
takes something more, and he doesn't have what it takes to really understand that
Book.
What is it that he needs? He can't investigate these things because they must be
investigated spiritually. When the Spirit of God comes into a person's life through
regeneration, he enables that person to read the Bible with new eyes, and to
understand it with a new mind. He transforms the person so that he comes to the
Book with a new heart, and he begins to see things that he never saw there before.
Have you ever talked to an unbeliever who says, "Aw, the Bible-that's a dead
book"? I've heard that dozens of times from unbelievers. And I say to them, "No,
you're a dead person, the Book is alive." You get the same effect, whether the
book is dead or the person is dead. Because he doesn't have spiritual life, the life
that the Spirit of God gives to enable one to understand this book, it is dead to
him.
Think of a corpse lying in a casket. We could cook the most delicious meal you
ever tasted-mountains of potatoes, lakes of gravy, fields of green peas, and
forests of roast beef reaching towards the sky. The aroma could fill this whole
huge auditorium. And then-a dessert that looks like Niagaras of whipped cream
cascading over cliffs of apricots! And we bring this huge, magnificent meal to the
corpse, and say, "Here it is! Look at it! Ah, doesn't it get to you?" Not a shiver.
Not even a sniff. Why? Because that body is dead. It is insensitive to the aromas,
the beauty, the magnificence, the taste and everything else. Here-in this Book-is
a far more wonderful meal. God said that we can't live by bread alone, so He
gave us His Word. But everywhere there are spiritual corpses walking around who
don't know Jesus Christ, who have no spiritual life, and who can't appreciate it.
Are you as a counselor going to change them by using the Word of God? Are you
going to tell them what they should do to get their three squares for that day so that
they can live by God's Word? No! They won't have any part of it; that is what it
says here. They don't welcome it; they aren't able to know about it, because they
can't investigate the Bible spiritually.
Now I Corinthians 2 goes on to say, "The spiritual person" that is, the person who
has the Spirit of God in his life, "is able to investigate everything while [on the other
hand] no one has the ability to investigate him." The unbeliever can't understand
the believer. He sees him as a strange character. He looks at him and says, "I
don't understand him." He talks about varieties of religious experience, the
psychology of conversion and all these things, but it's all off base. When you read
such things, you laugh and cry, because you know that they come nowhere near
the truth. Unbelievers can't understand why you do what you do, and why you
don't do what you don't do; why you take an interest in a prayer meeting and sing
in a choir. They don't understand any of these things. They can't. It takes the Spirit
of God living in a man to enable him to understand.
So the unbeliever isn't going to understand and appreciate the Christian counselor
either.
Right here in this room tonight are all kinds of things that you don't see or hear, but
they are here. There are all sorts of pictures-beer advertisements, commercials,
etc., and all kinds of music-rock and roll, popular, classical-right here, right
now. You didn't know that, did you? "Right here in the First Baptist Church in
Atlanta?" Yes, they are here. I could bring in a television set and turn it on and let
you see and hear it all. It would all take place right here because those sounds and
those pictures are all around us in this room. We don't hear them. Why? Because
we don't have a receiving set, and we're probably just as well off that we don't!
But that's the way the unbeliever is when it comes to the Word of God and the
things of God. Listen to what Paul says, in verse 9, "What eye hasn't seen and ear
hasn't heard"-that's just like the absence of the television set; without it you can't
see and can't hear. Let's go on, ".and hasn't been conceived by the human
heart, is what God has prepared for those who love Him. And to us God has
revealed it by His Spirit." That's what we must realize: that poor unsaved fellow
who sits in front of you in the counselee's seat seeking help, can't see or hear.
How are you going to help him? If you (as a good biblical counselor) turn to the
Scriptures and advise him, he can't even get it. Your words and the Bible's words
are sounds coming through the air, but he doesn't have the receiving equipment to
pick them up. That's what it is like when you use the Word of God to counsel an
unbeliever. You have to get that clear. There are serious limitations in counseling
an unbeliever. It is essential to recognize that.
"Well," you say, "Things are going from bad to worse. It looks as though it is
utterly hopeless to try to counsel an unbeliever. Would you please get to what I
can do? I thought you were going to talk about how to counsel." Now please be
patient. I have just a bit more to say first.
Now we have seen that unbelievers don't have the power to understand the
Scriptures, but that isn't all-there is still another limitation. Even if they were able
to understand the Scriptures, even if they wanted to obey the Scriptures and obey
Christ, they couldn't because they don't have the power of the Holy Spirit to
enable them to obey. I don't have time to get into it, but look at the third chapter
of Paul's letter to the Galatians, where he reminds them that you must begin the
Christian life by grace through faith, by God's doing everything for you in
Christ-you cannot save yourself. Then Paul asks them, "What is wrong with you;
beginning by grace, do you think you are going to grow by your own strength?"
The implied response is "absolutely not." The only way a Christian can grow is if
the Spirit of God continues to change him and make him different in the days to
come. So what are we going to do for unbelieving counselees?
There is no holiness apart from the power of the Spirit's giving us strength to obey
God's Word. Now there is a very important point to get clear about this. People
today are teaching false doctrine that sounds good. I am saying just as clearly as I
know how that we cannot depend on our own strength to make changes that
please God. That's what I've been saying all along. The Spirit of God must enable
us to understand the Word, must give us the power to obey the Word, must give
us the ability to declare Jesus Christ as our Lord and to really live as His servants.
So, since this is true some say, "That means that I must do nothing, absolutely
nothing. All I do is give up. All I do is recede into the background, and the less
there is of me and the less there is even of my obedience or efforts or anything
else, the more there will be of the Holy Spirit." And that sounds good, doesn't it?
And it is, if you interpret that rightly, but it isn't if you interpret it wrongly. And they
are interpreting it wrongly; they are interpreting it as passivity.
A Christian must obey God. A Christian must believe that the Holy Spirit does not
do the believing for us, and the Holy Spirit does not do the obeying for us. We are
responsible beings who are going to be held responsible for believing and doing
what God says; but we dare not do the obeying or believing in our own strength.
We must rely upon the strength of the Holy Spirit. That's the point. It is the Spirit
Who enables us to believe, and it is the Spirit Who enables us to obey. We must
not try to do these things in our own strength, or we shall do them wrongly. But
this is crucial-we must do them. He doesn't do them for us, as some are
teaching. So, then, you've got to recognize these limitations when trying to help an
unbeliever.
[2]
A Biblical Example.
Jacob and Esau. Esau and Jacob are given to us as examples of the kind of lives
that attract either the love or hatred of God (Ref. Genesis 25,27-23).
What was it about Esau that caused the Lord to express such strong feelings about
him? And why would Jacob, with all the personality problems that he
demonstrated throughout his life, draw the love of God? As we follow the
characters of these two men, as they are described in the Old and New
Testaments, we will see that it was a particular attitude of heart that each one had
an attitude that was the motivation of their whole lives. Today, the Lord desires
that we, as Christians, have the heart-attitude and motivation of Jacob, and not
Esau
Two Attitudes of the Heart
Esau and Jacob were twins born to Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 25:21-27).
Jacob received his name because he was born holding onto the heel of his brother.
"Jacob" means "sup-planter" or "one who takes the place of someone else by
treacherous or underhanded means" - and, as Jacob's life later showed, his name
certainly did describe his character, for he tricked and schemed his way to take
Esau's place as the firstborn and to get everything he wanted. But with all his faults,
Jacob had the one ingredient in his life that drew the love of God and released the
Lord to be able to work in his life, changing him into the kind of person He desired
him to be. Verse 27 of Genesis 25 gives the key to Esau and Jacob's heart-
attitudes:
"When the boys grew up, Esau became a skilful hunter, a man of the field; but
Jacob was a peaceful man, living in tents" (NASB).
Jacob, with Abraham and Isaac, had one main focus in life - he had his eyes on an
eternal dwelling place. He believed God's promise to Abraham, his grandfather,
that he would be the father of many nations (Genesis 12:2-3; 17:4-6; 16; 18:18;
22:17-18). This promise was ultimately to be fulfilled in Christ and the New
Creation that came forth from Him - for it was the New Creation people, born
through Christ's atoning work on the Cross and in His Resurrection, that make up
the "City" of God (Ref. Hebrews 12:22-24; 13:14; Galatians 3:7-9,13-19,29;
Revelation 21:2).
The key to Jacob's life was that "living in tents" represented a transient life. His
whole attitude was that he was a foreigner and pilgrim in the world.
(Hebrews 11:13-16)
13 ?a?All these died in faith, ?b?without receiving the promises, but
?c?having seen them and having welcomed them from a distance, and
?d?having confessed that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.[3]
With all his faults and failings, he had his eyes on one major goal - God's eternal
purpose.
The Scripture exhorts us to learn from the lives of those recorded in the Bible (1
Corinthians 10:6-11). Christians who only desire blessings from God, like Esau,
often become self-centered. If God's plan is the center of our lives, as with Jacob,
then the blessings will come automatically (Matthew 6:33; 19-34; 1 John 2:15).
The roots of our motivation are either in Esau or Jacob. God desires each of us
today to have a Jacob spirit.
Conclusion.
You can't counsel unbelievers in the biblical sense of the word (changing them,
sanctifying them through the work of the Holy Spirit, as His Word is ministered to
their hearts) so long as they remain unbelievers. The change they need is the
regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. So do pre-counseling: present the gospel,
and pray that the Holy Spirit will open their hearts to receive it in faith. Evangelism
is essential. That must come first.[4]
Remember, Jesus further explained, "The world. hates Me because I testify of it
that its works are evil" (John 7:7). In other words, the world's contempt for
Christianity stems from moral, not intellectual, motives: "And this is the
condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness
rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates
the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed" (John
3:19-20). That is why no matter how dramatically worldly opinion might vary;
Christian truth will never be popular with the world.
End of Part I.
==//==
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[1]Adams, J. E. (1986], c1979). A theology of Christian counseling : More than
redemption. Reprint. Originally published: More than redemption. Phillipsburg,
N.J. : Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., c1979. (309). Grand Rapids, MI:
Ministry Resource Library.
[2]Adams, J. E. (1986], c1979). A theology of Christian counseling : More than
redemption. Reprint. Originally published: More than redemption. Phillipsburg,
N.J. : Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., c1979. (313). Grand Rapids, MI:
Ministry Resource Library.
?a? Matt 13:17
?b? Heb 11:39
?c? John 8:56; Heb 11:27
?d? Gen 23:4; 47:9; 1 Chr 29:15; Ps 39:12; Eph 2:19; 1 Pet 1:1; 2:11
[3]New American Standard Bible : 1995 update. 1995 (Heb 11:12). LaHabra,
CA: The Lockman Foundation.
[4]Adams, J. E. (1986], c1979). A theology of Christian counseling : More than
redemption. Reprint. Originally published: More than redemption. Phillipsburg,
N.J. : Presbyterian and Reformed Pub. Co., c1979. (326). Grand Rapids, MI:
Ministry Resource Library.
--
My Christian Bible Study Collection - http://Bibleweb.Info/
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| User: "Zadok" |
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| Title: Re: Dysfunctional Family (Part I.) |
29 Jan 2007 01:41:15 PM |
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"Melchizedek" <> wrote in message ...
Dysfunctional Family (Part I.)
(Excerpt from Wikipedia)
Now there is a real source. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehe!!
According to Steven Farmer, the author of Adult Children of Abusive
Parents, [1]
there are several symptoms of family dysfunction:
Mixed Messages
An example of a mixed message would be to tell them there is a Santa Claus,
and then for them to find out later, they were lied to!!
Another example of a mixed message would be to tell them there was a sky
pixie named God, and then refuse to tell them the difference later.
Very confusing!!
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